Girls dive into SoundWaters lessons

Published 10:10 pm, Thursday, February 24, 2011

STAMFORD -- The 20 or so students sat around long tables at SoundWaters, pencils and notebooks at the ready.

"If we had paper or plastic, which do you think would take longer to break down?" asked Arlen Kilduff, a SoundWaters educator.

At once, the kids shouted in answer in unison: "Plastic!"

These students, mostly from Stamford and Norwalk, were participating Wednesday in Science Stars, a weeklong educational program held at SoundWaters during the schools' winter break. Science Stars engages students in the natural resources around them and the wonders of science, but there's something slightly different about the program: it's only for girls.

"The energy with just girls is amazing," said Leigh Shemitz, executive director at SoundWaters. "It's very hands-on, gutsy. They'll be creative, fun, silly -- and doing science. Not looking at a screen all day."

The idea of the program, offered for grades 3 to 7, is to get girls hooked into science, a field that's not traditionally dominated by females. The teaching staff at SoundWaters, being the exception to the rule, inspired the concept of Science Stars.

"The genesis came out of realizing that we're largely a teaching staff of female scientists and seeing that as an asset," Shemitz said. "At a certain point, girls tend to step back and become note-takers, and the boys do the experiments."

Science Stars aims to change that, introducing the girls to adult, female mentors from a range of jobs in the science field, from academia to the business world to the U.S. Coast Guard. The students keep a journal throughout the program, to take their knowledge home with them at the end of the week.

"I think it's brilliant," said Vincent Zack, whose daughter attended the program. "My daughter is in love with it. I think it's great the kids have this opportunity to be introduced to our environment."

During the course of the week, the girls did daylong activities and experiments with water quality, simulated creating horseshoe crab blood in a lab, interacted with all of SoundWaters' marine animals and learned about the effects of pollution on the environment, the focus of Wednesday's activities.

The students, divided into two groups, spent time brainstorming ideas to raise public awareness about pollution and learning about how the mess of marine debris, such as plastic bottles and cans, can affect the ecosystem.

"Soon enough, we're not going to have enough animals or fish to eat," said Laura Carroll, 10, of Toquam Magnet School. She and her fellow group members were drawing a poster to alert the public to the plight of marine animals.

"These girls are super engaged," said Kate Lowe, one of the SoundWaters' educators leading the program. "It's a great opportunity for them."

Science Stars, now in its fifth year, is funded by grants from Xerox, Purdue Pharma and the Barbara Leonhardt Foundation. The students all attend at no charge and the program is catching on with teachers and principals. This year, Shemitz said, the spots filled up quickly and there was a waiting list to get into the program.

"It's awesome to see that they can be so comfortable with the animals," educator Jocelyn Mahone said. "It's so much fun, we're having a blast, as you can imagine. What's not to love?"